


The Most Awkward Dance Ever

by mos



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mos/pseuds/mos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Self-explanatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Awkward Dance Ever

"Nope! It's today!" Mrs. Bennet sang out, before moving off toward Mrs. Lu and Mrs. Gibson, skirting the dance floor as she did and pumping her fist as she watched Bing and Jane on the dance floor.

Rolling her eyes, Lizzie sighed and crossed her arms, her own eyes moving back to Bing and Jane. How many songs had they danced to, now? Five? Six? More importantly, was Jane simply doing it to pacify their mother, or did she genuinely like Bing? They seemed to be chatting amiably enough, but even so, Lizzie was certainly not going to be doing any such thing, and would stand at the back wall for the entire evening if that was what it took to prove to their mother that she was not going to meet the man of her dreams at Ellen Gibson's wedding, and was not going to pretend otherwise.

"Are you just going to lurk back here for the entire evening?" Charlotte asked, wandering over with two glasses of punch, and handing Lizzie one.

"Is there any alcohol in this?" she asked, sniffing it and determining that there was, and subsequently throwing back the entire glass.

"You should dance," Charlotte said, eyeing her with something between pity and amusement.

"Not going to give my mother the satisfaction." She handed her friend the empty glass. "Get me another, will you?"

Charlotte had turned her attention to the left, however, and Lizzie followed her gaze to the laughing individuals who were also standing by the back wall. Caroline Lee actually hadn't been standing by the wall the entire time, but William Darcy had, and although several people had attempted to engage him in conversation earlier in the evening, he apparently couldn't be bothered with them and had been left alone for some time, texting on his phone and occasionally turning a moody, scornful eye on the wedding revelers.

"This town wouldn't know a Barney's from a JC Penney," Lizzie heard him say, while Caroline laughed, just a touch too loudly.

Charlotte shook her head, while Lizzie rolled her eyes. Word from the 2.5 WPF club was that William Darcy was heir to some entertainment empire, but he seemed to be as determined not to engage with the local single daughters as the mothers were to gossip about him.

"Rich, handsome, and a complete snob," Lizzie told Charlotte, who nodded thoughtfully, a critical eye still on Caroline and Darcy.

"Ooh, bouquet toss coming up," Charlotte said. The dance floor had cleared, which meant that Jane and Bing had separated for the time being. Jane was standing over by their mother, who was gesturing excitedly, and was Bing approaching his friends, who were still amusing themselves by making fun of the town and its residents.

Lizzie sighed and shook her head at her mother, who was now waving her arms wildly at her and gesturing to gather with the other single ladies. Lydia stumbled over, mostly drunk already and laughing.

"Mom says to get your ass over there with the other perpetually single spinsters," she said, with a grin.

"Lydia, seriously?"

"Elizabeth Bennet, this may be your last hope!" Mrs. Bennet bellowed across the room, turning heads, and the desire to stop her mother from making a show combined with a light shove from Charlotte moved her forward to join the other single daughters.

 

\---

 

The young woman had been standing by the wall for some time, but he had deliberately positioned himself a far enough distance away that she wouldn't engage him in conversation, and so far it had worked. It hadn't stopped the women and men of the town approaching him and waxing rhapsodic about their single daughters, though. He had been dismissive of them, of course, as he always was when such things happened. One of the hazards of being rich was that women tended to like him for his wallet (a touchy point as of late), and were completely unsuitable.

The other two that had joined her -the young, energetic drunk one who had been engaging in some uncouth dancing with an equally uncouth young man earlier in the evening and the other one who appeared to scowl a lot- were quite obviously eavesdropping on his conversation with Caroline.

"Darcy, why don't you dance?" Bing asked. "You can't just stand around by the back wall the entire time."

"I told you I have work to do, and I hate dancing. This music is not to my tastes, either."

What he did not say was that he hated being dragged out to places he didn't want to be, because Bing already knew that and had been doing so anyway since their college days. Once in awhile, when Bing dragged him out to a wine and cheese party or some other such thing suitable to their class and his comfort zone, he was inclined to engage with the others in the room, as they were his equals. Being dragged out to a country wedding was the polar opposite, and this particular one combined three things he disliked: weddings, dancing, and people hyper-focused on his fortune and social status.

"Come on, Darcy. It's a great wedding. Look at all the gorgeous girls. I've never seen a prettier girl than Jane Bennet. Come on and ask her sister Lizzie to dance."

"You were dancing with the only pretty girl at this wedding, though she smiles too much for my tastes."

In truth, it was probably the culmination of the last few months' events that made his mood so foul, though Bing didn't know anything about that. All Bing knew was that he'd had a huge fight with Gigi, and though they'd tentatively started talking again, he was still annoyed at everything: at money, at George Wickham, at the things Gigi had said that hit a little too close to home. If he was really, really being truthful, he would have admitted that several years of running a company and raising his sister had left little time for social engagements, and he was out of practice with going to places outside his comfort zone.

Pretending not to be socially awkward and shy when that was your natural state of being took practice, and while William Darcy could easily do it in a board meeting or a phone call with an investor, doing it at a stranger's wedding was somehow impossible, which only added fuel to his moodiness.

"Darcy."

"Oh leave him, Bing!" Caroline piped up. "You're the one who dragged us here."

"You should get in on that bouquet toss, Caroline," Bing told his sister with a wink.

"Not a chance," Caroline replied sweetly.

They watched as the single young women gathered -it seemed to be very important to their mothers that they did so, as if catching a pile of flowers made any difference to anything- and the bride, grinning, did not turn and toss it over her shoulder as was the tradition, but instead threw it straight at the auburn-haired girl -Lizzie, Jane's sister- who had previously been standing by the wall near him. Lizzie barely managed to catch it as it sailed toward her face.

"Well done," Bing said, smiling as ever.

Caroline rolled her eyes.

Darcy frowned down at his phone, calculating the time until he could reasonably escape.

 

\---

 

"She paid off Ellen Gibson!" Lizzie told Charlotte, for what must have been the tenth or twentieth time. Charlotte let out a loud sigh, which told her that she was tired of hearing it, but Lizzie was too disgruntled to care. She couldn't believe her mother.

"I told you, you should have just danced with someone earlier in the evening," Charlotte replied. "I did, and I was allowed to sit out the bouquet toss."

"Yeah, well your mom is not as much of a freak as mine."

"True. She prefers subtle hints over convoluted plans."

Lizzie groaned. The men were gathering nearby for the garter toss, and Lizzie didn't even want to look at them. She was reasonably certain that her mother hadn't paid off anyone else, but she couldn't be absolutely certain. Charlotte was right. She should have just danced with someone earlier so that she wasn't forced by her mother to do so, but how was she supposed to know that her mother would go so far as to pay off Ellen?

"Here goes," Charlotte said, and Lizzie looked up just in time to see the garter sailed right over the heads of most of the men. There were shouts and whooping as it flew overhead and hit William Darcy in the chest, him nearly dropping his phone as he caught it.

Lizzie spent a moment snorting at his dumbfounded expression before the sight of her mother once again fist-pumping caught the corner of her eye, and her smile faded. Lydia appeared, hooting and howling, grabbing her by the arm and thrusting her toward Darcy.

"Go get that hot piece of mancake!" she shouted, making a lewd gesture as she did so, and Lizzie was silently mortified.

Darcy moved forward reluctantly, urged on by a grinning Bing and the other men, who were still worked up from the garter removal. Lizzie forced a smile. As they moved closer to each other, their eyes met, his dark blue in the dim light. She thought he might have attempted to force a smile, but it looked more like a disapproving grimace. Together, they walked out onto the dance floor.

There was a brief moment, before the music started playing, where their eyes met again and something fluttered in Lizzie's stomach area. He _was_ a hot piece of mancake, or handsome anyway, classically so. Tall, dark, and handsome. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing to dance with him after all.

Of course, the music starting up quickly quashed that thought.

It was Michael Bolton's Said I Loved You But I Lied, arguably the cheesiest love song of all time, it was awful, and it was awkward all around.

 

\---

 

As he frantically tried to remember those dance lessons he'd had to take in high school, William Darcy realized that while he was holding his frame according to how he should, Lizzie Bennet was staring up at him with a strange expression on her face. Was he doing it wrong? He was. His frame was fine but she was too far away, and he couldn't very well pull her closer now, could he? He flushed a little at the thought, then silently kicked himself for that, too.

What the heck song was playing, anyway? He hadn't the urge to vomit in some time, but the song was enough to make him want to, almost. Was this what the lower classes listened to? It was disgusting, and frankly, a little disturbing.

He was supposed to be leading her, but he couldn't remember any of the dance steps. He hadn't been bad at it in high school, had he? Though of course there hadn't been so much pressure then; everyone at the private school had ballroom dance lessons together, and hardly any of them had put them into practice later, or at least he hadn't, anyway. How many years had it been since he'd danced? It had been long enough to forget everything he'd learned, apparently.

Silently, he once again cursed Bing for dragging him out to this affair in the first place.

Lizzie cleared her throat, dragging his attention back to her.

"Do you like it here in town?" she asked.

"Not especially," was his reply, which apparently was not the appropriate response despite being honest. What did she expect, for him to lie? He never lied.

He hated this town, he hated dancing, and at the moment, he hated Bing, too. He also hated hanging around with middle class country folk who called him things like _mancake_ and openly talked about his fortune. He was uncomfortable and annoyed, and it was all Bing's fault, and he wanted to go home and be done with this nonsense, but Bing had insisted he take a vacation. It was true that he had weeks of vacation time stored up from his years of running Pemberley, but he would have much preferred to spend them somewhere like his house in Buenos Aires, and not here, of all places, dancing with, with-

Lizzie Bennet was frowning at him, and for whatever reason, he found it distracting.

He frowned back.

 

\---

 

 

They swayed. It was awkward.

The frown hadn't left his face the entire time. Darcy held her like he was a robot, stiff and unmoving, his chin tucked into his chest. It wasn't doing much for her ego at all. Everything about him was dismissive, though maybe he was just... just what?

"Do you enjoy dancing?" she tried again. Well, that was a stupid question. Obviously he didn't, judging by the frowning and swaying.

"Not if I can help it," he replied, and that was the end of that. He was looking somewhere off her left shoulder, and she dropped any further attempts at conversation. It was clear that he didn't want to be here, didn't want to be dancing with her or anyone, for that matter. Everything about him said that he was too good for them.

She would have thought that rich guys like him would have had formal dance training. The awkward swaying was terrible. And the way he was holding her! Did she have cooties or what? It was like seventh grade all over again.

She was dancing with a robot. A robot who thought she had cooties.

Obviously she didn't like him, he being a pretentious snob and all, but it was a little offensive to hold her so far away. Not that she wanted to be pressed up again him -it was probably a good thing he hadn't ended up dancing with Lydia- but still, he could have pulled her a little closer. She supposed she could have as well, but she wasn't about to give her mother the satisfaction. It was bad enough that she was dancing with him in the first place.

She glanced up at him again. He _was_ attractive, she'd give him that, even with the newsie cap and the bowtie. It really was a shame that his personality stunk. Not that he was her type anyway. Or was he? He sure did smell good, which according to her second year biology lessons, indicated that they were compatible.

He glanced at her, his frown deepening. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. What a jerk.

She was not impressed.

Finally, _finally_ the song ended. Who the hell had chosen that song, anyway? As Darcy dropped his hands and she stepped away, she made a mental note to tell Ellen to hire a different DJ next time.

Thank goodness it was over. She glanced up at Darcy.

"Thank you for the dance," he said, and for a moment he was a different man, with a hint of softness in his voice and confusion in his eyes, the frown gone but his face still marred by a slight furrowing of the brows.

Their eyes locked for a brief moment before the frown came back and he turned away.

She scowled at his back and did the same.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A couple things:
> 
> -I hope I didn't offend anyone with my choice of song, but I wanted it to be a really terrible and cheesy love song, and that was the first one that came to mind. I actually like cheesy love songs. I had hoped to find one that could be seen as sort of foreshadowing their relationship, but couldn't find one. 
> 
> -I couldn't justify swapping to Darcy's point of view again, but that little change of expression he does at the end is sort of him "seeing her for the first time". Of course, he doesn't realize this, and he's still in a funk about being there at all, which leads him to say the "decent enough" stuff. I'm not justifying his behaviour, but I identify with him a lot, and I have been in that sort of funk before, when dragged somewhere I don't want to be. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm rambling. Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading. Mos out.


End file.
